Paper of the Week (Computational Physics of Film)

The first official paper of the week is "Computational Physics of Film" published in this week's Science

Article and abstract

Primary author's website     Second author's website     Physics-based Animation blog

This is a really good overview of the latest and greatest work in computer graphics research as applied to virtual worlds and film. Have you ever wondered how a glass can unbreak itself? Or Neo was able to dodge bullets in "The Matrix"? While some may attribute it to movie "magic" (e.g. hocus pocus), now you can learn the technical details in one easy package. Virtual world physics is an area with a lot of potential, and this review provides only a glimpse into current research.

P.S. If you are interested in the generation of virtual sound, take a look at the work of Douglas James at Cornell.